Sound Devices in Poetry
Poetry Out Loud: Reading Poetry
• The same skills you use to understand prose you use to understand poetry.
One Difference:
• Poetry is intended for the ear as well as for the eye.
– Not until you are able to read aloud can you really appreciate all that poetry has to offer.
Characteristics of poetry such as figures of speech, sensory imagery, rhythm, and rhyme become more forceful when they are heard.
This is why poetry should be read out loud.
One Difference:
• Poetry is intended for the ear as well as for the eye.
– Not until you are able to read aloud can you really appreciate all that poetry has to offer.
Characteristics of poetry such as figures of speech, sensory imagery, rhythm, and rhyme become more forceful when they are heard.
This is why poetry should be read out loud.
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Rhythm & Rhyme
"The Addressing of Cats," by T.S. Eliot
In the collection, Eliot introduces us to memorable Cats:
Old Gumbie Cat.
• Her real name is Jennyanydots • She spends her nights trying to teach good manners and household dills to mice and cockroaches. • She spends her days simply sitting. Growltiger lives the exciting life of a ship’s cat. • He gets into hair-raising adventures everywhere he goes. Skimbleshanks runs a passenger train practically single handedly. Every cat in the collection has a distinct personality, pursuing interests and activities very much its own, “like you and me,” Eliot says in “The Ad-dressing of Cats.” |
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"There Will Come Soft Rains," by Sarah Teasdale
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About the Poem from: Source: Poetry for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved.
In 1950, noted science fiction writer Ray Bradbury published his popular collection of futuristic short stories called The Martian Chronicles.
• That book contains a story called “There Will Come Soft Rains,” and it is not by accident that the title is the same as Sara Teasdale’s poem published in Flame and Shadow thirty years earlier, in 1920, by MacMillan.
Bradbury borrowed the name directly from the poet’s work
• He based his story on a theme similar to the poem’s, the senseless destruction of humankind by their own hands through war.
– In the story, a talking house is left confused and devastated by the loss of its masters, who vanished in an atomic blast.
– At one point, the house, lonely for its mistress, reads aloud one of the dead woman’s favorite poems—“There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale.
Teasdale’s poem is a response to her disdain for and disillusionment over World War I.
• When the United States became involved in the conflict, Teasdale turned some of her creative attention to writing anti-war lyrics, and when this poem appeared in Flame and Shadow, it carried the subtitle “War Time.”
The poem addresses the atrocity of battle from the perspective of nature
• Of birds and frogs and trees whose lives will go on even if human beings obliterate themselves from the planet.
– It is interesting to note that in Bradbury’s short story based on the poem, nature and nonhuman objects do not fare quite as well, eventually succumbing to their own deaths without people around to support them.
• But Teasdale takes perhaps a more cynical approach in that nature will not only endure but will carry on without even noticing “that we were gone.”
• Source: Poetry for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved.
• That book contains a story called “There Will Come Soft Rains,” and it is not by accident that the title is the same as Sara Teasdale’s poem published in Flame and Shadow thirty years earlier, in 1920, by MacMillan.
Bradbury borrowed the name directly from the poet’s work
• He based his story on a theme similar to the poem’s, the senseless destruction of humankind by their own hands through war.
– In the story, a talking house is left confused and devastated by the loss of its masters, who vanished in an atomic blast.
– At one point, the house, lonely for its mistress, reads aloud one of the dead woman’s favorite poems—“There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale.
Teasdale’s poem is a response to her disdain for and disillusionment over World War I.
• When the United States became involved in the conflict, Teasdale turned some of her creative attention to writing anti-war lyrics, and when this poem appeared in Flame and Shadow, it carried the subtitle “War Time.”
The poem addresses the atrocity of battle from the perspective of nature
• Of birds and frogs and trees whose lives will go on even if human beings obliterate themselves from the planet.
– It is interesting to note that in Bradbury’s short story based on the poem, nature and nonhuman objects do not fare quite as well, eventually succumbing to their own deaths without people around to support them.
• But Teasdale takes perhaps a more cynical approach in that nature will not only endure but will carry on without even noticing “that we were gone.”
• Source: Poetry for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved.
"The Rainy Day," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Discussion Questions
• What are the symptoms of this rainy day?
• Stanza 2 is almost a duplicate of stanza 1, but there are important differences. For what are “the day,” “the vine,” and “dead leaves” metaphors?
• How is the message in stanza 3 different from stanzas 1 and 2? Who is addressed?
• Rephrase stanza 3, line for line.
• Tell why you agree or disagree with line 14.
• Stanza 2 is almost a duplicate of stanza 1, but there are important differences. For what are “the day,” “the vine,” and “dead leaves” metaphors?
• How is the message in stanza 3 different from stanzas 1 and 2? Who is addressed?
• Rephrase stanza 3, line for line.
• Tell why you agree or disagree with line 14.
"The Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe
Themes:
Theme: Death ultimately triumphs over life (or, life is a journey toward death).
• The bells ring joyfully in youth.
– However, even as they ring, death lurks in the background.
• For example, in Stanza 1, the narrator hears the tinkling sleigh bells at night (Line 5), meaning the darkness of death (night) is present at the beginning of life.
• In Stanza 2, the bells ringing in celebration of the wedding resound "through the balmy air of night," meaning the darkness of death is present in young adulthood.
• In Stanza 3, the bells ring "in the startled ear of night," meaning:
– the darkness of death is present in middle age and later, when fire begins to consume the exuberance of youth
• In Stanza 4, the bells ring "in the silence of the night," meaning death has triumphed over life.
The Bells as Death's Accomplice
• In the first stanza, the bells keep time in a "Runic rhyme," a mysterious rhyme that pleases the ear.
– Thus, the bells become death's accomplice, marking the passing of time–each second, hour, day, year–with beautiful sounds that continue until life ends and the king of the ghouls tolls the death knell (Stanza 4).
– The ghouls, demons who feed on the flesh of the dead, are happy to welcome death's victims.
– Their happiness mockingly echoes the joy expressed in the first stanza.
• Moreover, the bells that the ghoul tolls also peal with a "Runic rhyme," like the bells in Stanza 1.
– That characteristic of the bells is the same one that celebrated youth and marriage in Stanzas 1 and 2.
– From the ghouls' perspective:
• young people are the future food of the ghouls.
• And married people produce new youths.
All the while, the bells keep time, counting each passing moment.
• The bells ring joyfully in youth.
– However, even as they ring, death lurks in the background.
• For example, in Stanza 1, the narrator hears the tinkling sleigh bells at night (Line 5), meaning the darkness of death (night) is present at the beginning of life.
• In Stanza 2, the bells ringing in celebration of the wedding resound "through the balmy air of night," meaning the darkness of death is present in young adulthood.
• In Stanza 3, the bells ring "in the startled ear of night," meaning:
– the darkness of death is present in middle age and later, when fire begins to consume the exuberance of youth
• In Stanza 4, the bells ring "in the silence of the night," meaning death has triumphed over life.
The Bells as Death's Accomplice
• In the first stanza, the bells keep time in a "Runic rhyme," a mysterious rhyme that pleases the ear.
– Thus, the bells become death's accomplice, marking the passing of time–each second, hour, day, year–with beautiful sounds that continue until life ends and the king of the ghouls tolls the death knell (Stanza 4).
– The ghouls, demons who feed on the flesh of the dead, are happy to welcome death's victims.
– Their happiness mockingly echoes the joy expressed in the first stanza.
• Moreover, the bells that the ghoul tolls also peal with a "Runic rhyme," like the bells in Stanza 1.
– That characteristic of the bells is the same one that celebrated youth and marriage in Stanzas 1 and 2.
– From the ghouls' perspective:
• young people are the future food of the ghouls.
• And married people produce new youths.
All the while, the bells keep time, counting each passing moment.
Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, and Onomatopoeia
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Onomatopoeia and Alliteration
• Onomatopoeia and alliteration occur throughout the poem, helping to support the musicality of the poem.
– Onomatopoeia, a figure of speech in which a word imitates a sound, occurs in such words as tinkling, jingling, chiming, shriek, twanging, clanging, and clang.
– Alliteration, in which words repeat consonant sounds, occurs in such groups as "bells, bells, bells" and "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle."
Other examples of alliteration are the following:
• What a world of merriment their melody foretells! (Stanza 1, third line)
• What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! (Stanza 2, third line)
• What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! (Stanza 3, third line)
– Onomatopoeia, a figure of speech in which a word imitates a sound, occurs in such words as tinkling, jingling, chiming, shriek, twanging, clanging, and clang.
– Alliteration, in which words repeat consonant sounds, occurs in such groups as "bells, bells, bells" and "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle."
Other examples of alliteration are the following:
• What a world of merriment their melody foretells! (Stanza 1, third line)
• What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! (Stanza 2, third line)
• What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! (Stanza 3, third line)
"The Spider Holds a Silver Ball," by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Dickinson’s poems often strike a lonely or despondent note • This makes her a different from the stoic New England characteristics of other poetry being written during her time. Her work is more like Robert Frost, who came a century later. •http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xs8a1r_emily-dickinson-biographical-sketch_creation#.URuWRfJ37K0 |
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Terms to Know:
Rhythm
Rhyme
Rhyme Scheme
Internal Rhyme
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia
Rhyme
Rhyme Scheme
Internal Rhyme
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia